Fortress Frontier (Shadow Ops 2)

by Cole, Myke

  Therese was another matter. A pepper-spray ball had exploded against her abdomen, soaking her hips, but the vapors didn’t seem to be doing more than causing her to sniff and blink. She reached the Sculptor in three strides and fastened her hands around his neck. ‘Call them off,’ she said. ‘Call them off, or you turn into mush.’

  He chuckled. ‘Seriously? You going to Rend, Mother Teresa? Thought you’d sworn off that. Even if I hadn’t heard that whole chitchat with you and Render, I still got the pleasure of reading your dossier. Real sob story. Do your worst.’

  Therese gritted her teeth, and Britton couldn’t tell if her magic was Suppressed or if her expression reflected frustration at the Sculptor’s accurate call. Either way, nothing happened. The Sculptor slowly pried her fingers apart. ‘That’s better.’

  Britton planted his boot on the operator’s neck as he tried to rise, scanning with his pistol. The cordon of SOC operators tightened. There were over twenty of them. The hatch they’d entered through was closed.

  ‘Give it up, Oscar,’ the man in the suit called to him. ‘You don’t want to shoot anybody. Let us get your friends some help, and we can go sort this out.’

  But Downer, for the moment at least, didn’t look like she needed help. Her forehead was beading sweat, but her eyes were scanning the room with every bit of alertness he’d seen on the missions they’d run together.

  ‘Sarah! I’ve only got ten more rounds!’ he shouted, pointed the gun into the crowd of operators and pulled the trigger. The soldiers dove as the gun sparked, spitting out the round, a small tongue of flame jetting from the muzzle. Britton felt flows drop and adjust as the operators focused on diving for cover over Suppression. He yanked the trigger again and again, the poor control causing the shots to drop crazily, all accuracy gone.

  But that didn’t matter. The bullets careened off the metal struts of hothouse structure, pulsed fire from the gun’s muzzle.

  Elements in motion, hot kinetic energy.

  Britton hoped to hell that Downer wouldn’t let him down.

  She didn’t.

  By the time the magazine had emptied, and the slide locked to the rear, two small elementals had risen at the far side of the chamber. One blazed dirty, cordite-laden fire. The other sparked static electricity from a rust-chipped metal strut. They moved with blazing speed, lighting among the SOC team, ignoring the men with guns across their chests, diving instead for the ones with metal fists emblazoned on their body armor, each clutching a bundle of lightning bolts. Their size didn’t detract from their blazing energy. The Suppressors swore and dove again, beating at the little balls burning and sparking around their heads.

  ‘Good girl,’ Britton whispered, and lunged for the Sculptor. He stumbled on the operator’s body, his right cross turning into a wild haymaker that caught the Sorcerer’s throat in the crook of his arm. The Sculptor coughed, his head lurching. A fleshy knob erupted from his back, knocking the wind out of Britton, launching him back to land on his face. Britton felt his magic return to him as the Sculptor dropped the Suppression and engaged his own magic. Britton struggled to Draw, but his hitching lungs and bruised belly forced him to focus simply on breathing.

  ‘Stupid, fucking . . .’ The Sculptor seethed, his head twisting all the way around. He leered at Britton, his suddenly elastic neck supporting his head while his body remained facing forward. A moment later, the flesh oozed, reversed, and he was whole again, solid and facing Britton. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said as he resumed Suppressing Britton. ‘You can’t fight city hall, Oscar. We will always find you. We will always make you pay.’

  Britton recovered his wind and tried to Draw again. His magic railed against the Scultpor’s disciplined tide, utterly impotent. ‘You fucking work for them. I was coming here to help people like you.’

  ‘Pshaw. I don’t need your help, silly boy,’ the Sculptor taunted. ‘I’m doing just fine.’

  His head suddenly lurched forward, greasy black hair flying up, teeth clicking together. Spit flew from his mouth, and he sloughed sideways, eyes shutting and jaw going slack.

  Behind him, Therese shook her fist, her knuckles bleeding. Whether or not she was willing to Rend, there was nothing stopping her from putting her fist in the Sculptor’s ear. Britton felt his magic rush back to him as the Sculptor’s Suppression failed with his consciousness.

  It wouldn’t take another Suppressor long to figure out that Britton’s tide was free. He opened a gate across the hothouse floor, just before Therese and the rest of them. It opened on the wooden palisade wall of Marty’s village.

  ‘Go!’ Britton shouted. ‘Right now, go!’

  The sight of the gate energized Swift. He howled in rage and raised the hand of the soldier pinning him to his face, biting down hard, his teeth penetrating the thin fabric of the shooter’s glove. Bone crunched, and the man screamed, giving Swift enough leverage to free a hand, which dropped to the operator’s pistol, yanking hard. The butt caught against the drop holster, and the pistol held fast, but the soldier had to release Swift to keep him from stealing his weapon, and in the next moment Swift was free, pelting across the ground and diving through the gate.

  Therese pulled Truelove up from the ground and spun to face Britton. Her eyes were wide.

  ‘Go!’ Britton shouted again. ‘I’ll slide it here once you’re through!’

  She nodded and leapt through the portal, Truelove wailing in her arms, as three more paintballs smacked into her chest and abdomen.

  ‘Sarah, damn it!’ Britton shouted again, on his feet now, pushing the gate toward her.

  Downer looked at him, at the soldiers around her, her eyes clear. Two operators tried to dash between her and the gate, but Britton flickered it forward, and they dove to avoid being cut by its edge.

  ‘Go, Sarah,’ Britton said, hope fading in his breast. ‘Don’t . . . just go.’

  But Sarah Downer looked back to him and shook her head, once, firmly. She dropped to her knees clasping her hands behind her head. Britton could see the elementals flicker out in his peripheral vision, the small sparks of their resistance quenched as Downer’s magic rolled back of her own accord.

  He swore and slid the gate toward himself, but another current drove into his own, batting it aside and suffocating it. The gate flickered and vanished, leaving Oscar staring at the barrels of a dozen submachine guns. The Sculptor pushed his way through them, the bruise forming on his head already beginning to heal as he turned his magic to it.

  ‘Open the gate,’ he said. ‘Open it right now and show us where they went.’

  Britton shook his head. ‘No way.’

  The Physiomancer pointed, the tip of his finger stretching into a bone spike that hovered in front of the Britton’s eyeball, so close he could see the pores in the bone, flecked with glistening red. ‘Are you fucking stupid? Do you have any idea how much I can hurt you? Do you want to die?’

  Britton remembered Harlequin, diving from the flight-line tower to save him. The one thing he could count on the SOC to do was try to preserve his power, bend it to their uses. He knew the Sculptor’s threats of torture weren’t idle. But his threats of death were.

  ‘Do you want to kill me?’ Britton mused. ‘Because that’s what you’re going to have to do to get me to open another gate anywhere, ever.’ He strained to see Downer, but the girl was screened by the legs and boots of soldiers and SOC operators, crowding around her. He thought of calling out to her, then remembered the expression on her face as she’d dropped to her knees. I don’t have anywhere else, she’d said. He hadn’t been able to make her see that she did have somewhere else, and now she’d made her choice. Failure choked him.

  The Sculptor cocked an eyebrow as one of the operators moved behind Britton, his voice firm and low. ‘Hands behind your back. Spread your fingers.’ Britton thought briefly of fighting, then considered the array of weapons pointed at him. He complied, wincing as the cuffs cinched tight.

  ‘All right, let’s go.’ They beg
an to walk him toward the rear of the hothouse, where a pair of metal-framed double doors stood open. As he passed the Sculptor, he twisted toward him, glaring.

  ‘Be nice,’ the Sculptor said, meeting his eyes. ‘I Rend as well as I disguise. We have a lot of questions to ask you, Oscar. And I’m going to be helping out in that regard, so you’d do well to be kind to me.’

  Britton was forced out onto a cracked concrete driveway, beside which he could see an unmarked white van. Beyond it, a river reflected the lights of assembled skyscrapers, straining skyward like glittering concrete teeth. Police cars blocked the street at both ends, sirens spinning, yellow tape keeping pedestrians well away.

  They stopped him, and the Sculptor came forward, raising a black hood. ‘You know the drill.’ He held it over Britton’s head, meeting his glare. The Sculptor’s eyes were pale gray and filmy. The eyes of a dead man. Pitiless.

  Sick fear churned in Britton’s stomach. His heart fluttered like a caged bird.

  ‘Oh, you and I are going to be spending some quality time together from now on, my dear Oscar Britton,’ the Sculptor said. ‘I am so looking forward to it.’

  The hood came down, and Britton drowned in darkness.

  Cross Purposes

  The ‘Embracer’ faith centers around the belief that magic is the wellspring of life. All those who live outside the faith are thought to have become ‘lost’, wandering from that pivotal origin. It is the duty of all rightly minded goblins to bring all living things back to that flow. Success in this endeavor will bring about some kind of heralded golden age. Bringing the ‘lost’ home is a matter of dogma among the Embracers, and the defense of those they choose to embrace one of the few things that will move them to violence. The Mattab On Sorrah exist in a constant state of war with the neighboring Defender tribes that wish to fight against humans.

  – Simon Truelove

  ‘A Sojourn Among the Mattab on Sorrah’

  Chapter Fourteen

  In Command

  Working with the indig is . . . I guess it’s productive. They do a lot of work around the base. We use ’em as ’terps and scouts sometimes. They know the country, and that helps. Some of ’em learn English, and that’s great. But the truth is that I don’t ever turn my back on ’em, not for a minute. When I was in Afghanistan, even the ‘good’ muj were still muj. They liked us, they loved America, yadda yadda yadda. But we all knew they’d shoot us in the back if they thought it’d get ’em somewhere. Goblins’ the same way. This is their home, not ours, and we both know it.

  Staff Sergeant Byron Pointer

  Third Marine Expeditionary Unit, 212th Suppression Lance,

  FOB Frontier

  Bookbinder was awakened by explosions and shrieking gunfire. He rolled into a sitting position, blinking and rubbing his eyes. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as Aeromantic magic drove what must have been a massive column of lightning into the ground just outside his hooch. The converted container shook, and the smell of ozone filled the tiny room.

  He yawned, shook his head and buckled on his gun belt, strapped on his body armor and helmet, tied his boots. He opened the door and made his way outside, not hurrying. Why should he? Repulsing the attacking goblins bought them two days of peace. The attacks had come roughly every other day since then, increasing in intensity. It was as if the local tribes knew they were cut off and running low on supplies. Or maybe they had seen the interior of the FOB when they’d first overrun the SASS and gone mad at the thought of plunder.

  Soldiers raced pell-mell on the muddy track. The attack seemed to be on the flight-line perimeter this time, a bad call by the attackers, as air support didn’t have far to go to get in the fight.

  Bookbinder saw an MP standing in front of the hooch across from his rocking back and forth like he was wrestling with something. Bookbinder stared until the man drew back his fist and began punching, then he jogged over. As he drew closer, he could see the MP had a goblin contractor pinned against the side of the hooch. The creature’s face was bruised and going bloody under the blows. The MP’s battle buddy stood to one side, watching impassively.

  Bookbinder noted the man’s stripes before shouting, ‘Damn it, Sergeant! What the hell is going on here?’

  The man turned and saluted, his knuckles bloody. His other hand still held the goblin by its skinny throat. ‘Sorry, sir. I caught this little fucker spotting for the enemy.’

  ‘What was he doing?’ Bookbinder asked. ‘Drawing a map?’

  The MP’s partner, an army private first class, replied, ‘You know how it is, sir.’

  ‘No, I do not fucking know how it is. You’re going to explain it to me right now.’

  The PFC might have rolled his eyes, but it was impossible to tell in the half light, smoke, and chaos around them. ‘He was pacing off, sir, to guide in the indirect.’

  Bookbinder gestured around him. ‘Here? A bunch of residential hooches that are far apart and sandbagged out the ass? They might get three people if they’re lucky. Spotters would be working the crowded areas, like the DFAC or the cash.’

  The PFC shrugged, and the sergeant began to look irritated. ‘He was pacing off, sir. They give that to their Sorcerers to call in the magical strikes.’

  ‘I know how they do it. And what you’re telling me is that he was walking.’

  The sergeant’s eyes narrowed, ‘Pacing, sir. We’re taking him in.’

  ‘Take him in, question him. That’s your job. You know what’s not your job? Beating the living shit out of him.’

  ‘He was resisting, sir,’ the sergeant said. He was at least double the creature’s size and kitted out in full battle rattle, while the goblin was unarmed and only semiconscious.

  ‘Uh-huh, looks like a real threat. Let him go and let me see your ID, we’re going to have a little chat with your—’

  Bookbinder was cut off by the deafening howl of one of the air-defense systems engaging. It popped from its nest of wire and concrete gabions, the radar in its white dome tracking something, and let loose a volley of twenty-millimeter rounds. Bookbinder looked up just in time to see a smallish dragon, its dark blue hide almost invisible in the night sky, dodging around the vicious column of fire. A goblin, skin painted white and nearly as big as the flying creature, clung tightly to its back, legs wrapped around its underbelly, arms around its long neck.

  As it passed over them, the goblin howled something in its own language and pointed downward. The ground beneath Bookbinder’s feet rolled like an ocean wave. A fist-sized chunk of rock careened off his body armor and spun past his head with enough force that it would have decapitated him had it been just a few inches closer. It collided with the white radar dome of the air-defense system, shattering the plastic and sending a spray of sparks showering over Bookbinder. The gunfire stopped immediately.

  Bookbinder heard a shriek and cursing from the MPs. He shut his eyes against the sparks as the air-defense system coughed and died. He flailed for his pistol, unable to get his footing on the rolling ground.

  Boot tips brushed the top of Bookbinder’s helmet and, suddenly, the ground steadied. He yanked his pistol from his holster and jerked it skyward, just in time to see the goblin sorcerer winging away from him, two SOC Aeromancers in close pursuit, a summoned storm cloud belching fist-sized hailstones, pummeling the little dragon that served as its mount.

  ‘Fuuuuuck! Oh, fuck!’ someone wailed.

  Bookbinder looked down. The sergeant and the goblin were gone. The PFC remained, swallowed by the earth from his waist down. His helmet and goggles were gone, and blood trickled from the corner of one eye. His face had gone white.

  Bookbinder ran to his side and knelt. ‘Are you okay?’ You idiot. Does he look okay? ‘You’re stuck?’ He thrust his hands into the PFC’s armpits, trying to haul him up.

  ‘No! No! No!’ the PFC shrieked. ‘My . . . I’m all smashed up down there! Stop! Stop!’

  Bookbinder jumped to his feet. ‘Okay . . . Hang on, I’ll go for help.
’

  He bolted for the cash. ‘Medic!’ he shouted. ‘Need a medic here!’

  The farther he got from the flight line, the quieter the FOB became. Before long, the muddy pathways were completely deserted.

  That all changed once he reached the cash. Lines of wounded stretched out of the entrance flaps, some draped over gurneys, others sprawled in the mud, their buddies trying vainly to help them. The cries and moans reached Bookbinder long before he reached them. A few white-coated doctors, assistants, and orderlies buzzed among the wounded, engaged in desperate triage.

  Bookbinder’s stomach fell as he realized that the PFC would have to linger in agony or die until this assault passed. There was simply no help to spare.

  I can at least get him a syringe of morphine. The PFC had been involved in what was likely the illegal beating of an innocent contractor. But that was no reason not to help the man. He was a soldier, and Bookbinder was a leader of soldiers. That PFC wasn’t the only one who had begun to look askance at the sizeable cadre of goblin contractors who worked on the base. Many had disappeared following Britton’s escape. The hostility and distrust of the indig skyrocketed with the increasing pace of attacks.

  Bookbinder knelt beside an orderly in scrubs so blood-soaked they were a shade between rust and purple. Though he already knew the answer, he said, ‘I’ve got a guy about a quarter klick east hurt bad. I need a medic.’

  The orderly shook his head without turning. ‘Sorry, we’re all hands on deck here. There’s a map in the trauma tent. Mark his location there and fill out a casualty card. We’ll get to him when we can.’